6 ms·

> I do care how your lazy, careless, ignorant use of psychiatric language perpetuates stigma against a wide range of disenfranchised powerless people. This doe

by pen2l 11y ago

> I do care how your lazy, careless, ignorant use of psychiatric language perpetuates stigma against a wide range of disenfranchised powerless people. This does not seem fair. We're talking about people like Zuck and Spiegel who actually are screwing up people, who literally joke about peeing on women and literally brag about violating people's privacy purposely. We're talking about founders of companies whose primary means of income is duping people by advertising. Calling them psychopaths is not unfair by any stretch of the word. Personally I'm not a fan of michaelochurch's wild outbursts either, but it's clear he isn't the one attacking powerless people, the situation is actually quite the opposite of that.

dang 11y ago
> Calling [founders of advertising businesses] psychopaths is not unfair by any stretch of the word That's beyond unfair; it's absurd. But yes, of course calling individuals psychopaths with no substantive basis is a personal attack, and a nasty one. Many people enjoy that kind of thing. Many also enjoy the Jerry Springer Show. It doesn't belong on Hacker News. This is not a borderline call! More generally: the problem with the comments we're objecting isn't that they're untrue. The odds of this type of thinking arriving at truth don't seem high, but I don't know, and neither do the commenters. The stuff isn't verifiable. What is verifiable is that the signal/noise ratio is low. Why? Because the excitement of indignation is noise, and when you take that out, and take out persuasive-sounding but empty rhetoric, there's nothing or almost nothing left. I have no problem with critiques of VC as such and have made my own share of digs against suits. But shrill, vacuous rhetoric is outside what the HN guidelines call for, regardless of what it advocates. Repeating it often and loudly doesn't change that.
- pen2l 11y ago
  > That's beyond unfair; it's absurd. But yes, of course calling individuals psychopaths with no substantive basis is a personal attack, and a nasty one I personally think monetizing via advertising is unethical, but I'll concede on this point. I realize I'm in the minority here so I accept that by currently ruling norms advertising is not a psychopathic activity. > I'd say the odds of this type of thinking arriving at truth aren't high, but I don't know, and neither do the commenters. The stuff simply isn't verifiable. Here, I strongly disagree. This stuff is very verifiable... by just going to news outlets (prestigious, established outlets, not just blogs) which have verified documentation of chats in which Zuck calls users of his site "dumb fucks" for having trusted him with private photos, SSNs, etc. We have documented proof of Evan persuading drunk women to perform sexual favors for his friends (no, it's not referring a friend to a friend, it's not innocently hooking up a date, it's getting drunk women to "give blowjobs" to his friends), in chats he is describing peeing on women, doing cocaine, about installing strip poles in places he owns, etc. This is documented in places like NYTimes: http://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/24/magazine/whats-really-at-stake-in-ellen-paos-kleiner-perkins-lawsuit.html http://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/24/magazine/whats-really-at-s... What's more, Spiegel himself admitted this, Zuck similarly has recognized the chats to be true (not that such proof was needed -- it was validated by prominent journalists independently). These folks need to be called out. At present we see a pattern of young brash founders who are misogynistic and disrespectful getting their way. Per the persistence of the patterns this kind of behavior is becoming normalized as being okay in society's eyes, one way to stop this is to do anything we can to stigmatize the non-consensual peeing on women, the violation of people's privacy, etc. It's by saying it's bad. Otherwise, what would-be entrepreneurs are internalizing is they can get away with this, that hustling in this way is just part of the game, that it doesn't matter that you're living life without recognizing others' dignity.
  - SamReidHughes 11y ago
    Bringing up Zuckerberg calling his users "dumb fucks" is so, so, sooo weak. Remind me never to make any self-deprecating comments around you.
- michaelochurch 11y ago
  But yes, of course calling individuals psychopaths with no substantive basis is a personal attack, and a nasty one. Many people enjoy that kind of thing. Many also enjoy the Jerry Springer Show. It doesn't belong on Hacker News. This is not a borderline call! I had substantive basis: the history of how he ran his business is fairly public. You have every right not to like what I say. You have every right to say that you don't like what I say. But your high horse posturing is tedious, counter-productive, and, because you are HN's moderator, it does more damage to this place than I ever could.
  - throwawaymaroon 11y ago
    Unfortunately dang is just the shield defending the dominant structure; enforcers tend to be clueless, which gives them quite plausible deniability. I doubt he even understands the nature of the damage being done.
DanBC 11y ago
You see behaviour that you don't like and don't understand and your instinct is to ascribe that to mental illness / neuro-atypicality, rather than just call an asshole an asshole. So, all those people who do have mental illness / neuro-atypicality now have to cope with the stigma of people thinking that their diagnosis means they are violent or assholes or whatever.
- pen2l 11y ago
  That's a good point, thanks for bringing this up. From now on I will think of Evan as an asshole rather than a psychopath.

by pen2l 11y ago

dang 11y ago

> Calling [founders of advertising businesses] psychopaths is not unfair by any stretch of the word That's beyond unfair; it's absurd. But yes, of course calling individuals psychopaths with no substantive basis is a personal attack, and a nasty one. Many people enjoy that kind of thing. Many also enjoy the Jerry Springer Show. It doesn't belong on Hacker News. This is not a borderline call! More generally: the problem with the comments we're objecting isn't that they're untrue. The odds of this type of thinking arriving at truth don't seem high, but I don't know, and neither do the commenters. The stuff isn't verifiable. What is verifiable is that the signal/noise ratio is low. Why? Because the excitement of indignation is noise, and when you take that out, and take out persuasive-sounding but empty rhetoric, there's nothing or almost nothing left. I have no problem with critiques of VC as such and have made my own share of digs against suits. But shrill, vacuous rhetoric is outside what the HN guidelines call for, regardless of what it advocates. Repeating it often and loudly doesn't change that.

pen2l 11y ago
> That's beyond unfair; it's absurd. But yes, of course calling individuals psychopaths with no substantive basis is a personal attack, and a nasty one I personally think monetizing via advertising is unethical, but I'll concede on this point. I realize I'm in the minority here so I accept that by currently ruling norms advertising is not a psychopathic activity. > I'd say the odds of this type of thinking arriving at truth aren't high, but I don't know, and neither do the commenters. The stuff simply isn't verifiable. Here, I strongly disagree. This stuff is very verifiable... by just going to news outlets (prestigious, established outlets, not just blogs) which have verified documentation of chats in which Zuck calls users of his site "dumb fucks" for having trusted him with private photos, SSNs, etc. We have documented proof of Evan persuading drunk women to perform sexual favors for his friends (no, it's not referring a friend to a friend, it's not innocently hooking up a date, it's getting drunk women to "give blowjobs" to his friends), in chats he is describing peeing on women, doing cocaine, about installing strip poles in places he owns, etc. This is documented in places like NYTimes: http://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/24/magazine/whats-really-at-stake-in-ellen-paos-kleiner-perkins-lawsuit.html http://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/24/magazine/whats-really-at-s... What's more, Spiegel himself admitted this, Zuck similarly has recognized the chats to be true (not that such proof was needed -- it was validated by prominent journalists independently). These folks need to be called out. At present we see a pattern of young brash founders who are misogynistic and disrespectful getting their way. Per the persistence of the patterns this kind of behavior is becoming normalized as being okay in society's eyes, one way to stop this is to do anything we can to stigmatize the non-consensual peeing on women, the violation of people's privacy, etc. It's by saying it's bad. Otherwise, what would-be entrepreneurs are internalizing is they can get away with this, that hustling in this way is just part of the game, that it doesn't matter that you're living life without recognizing others' dignity.
- SamReidHughes 11y ago
  Bringing up Zuckerberg calling his users "dumb fucks" is so, so, sooo weak. Remind me never to make any self-deprecating comments around you.
michaelochurch 11y ago
But yes, of course calling individuals psychopaths with no substantive basis is a personal attack, and a nasty one. Many people enjoy that kind of thing. Many also enjoy the Jerry Springer Show. It doesn't belong on Hacker News. This is not a borderline call! I had substantive basis: the history of how he ran his business is fairly public. You have every right not to like what I say. You have every right to say that you don't like what I say. But your high horse posturing is tedious, counter-productive, and, because you are HN's moderator, it does more damage to this place than I ever could.
- throwawaymaroon 11y ago
  Unfortunately dang is just the shield defending the dominant structure; enforcers tend to be clueless, which gives them quite plausible deniability. I doubt he even understands the nature of the damage being done.

DanBC 11y ago

You see behaviour that you don't like and don't understand and your instinct is to ascribe that to mental illness / neuro-atypicality, rather than just call an asshole an asshole. So, all those people who do have mental illness / neuro-atypicality now have to cope with the stigma of people thinking that their diagnosis means they are violent or assholes or whatever.

pen2l 11y ago
That's a good point, thanks for bringing this up. From now on I will think of Evan as an asshole rather than a psychopath.